 Praskovia Saltykova was the mother of Empress Regnant Anna Ivanovna, and wife of the titular Tsar Ivan V (co-Tsar with Peter the Great). She was a formidible woman, known both for her great charity towards waifs and strays, and her formidible temper.
One of her temper tantrums, aimed at a steward she had dismissed, was related thus in A Forgotten Empress by Mina Kirstein Curtiss: "The man had attempted to avange himself by presenting to the Tsar [Peter] a note Praskovya had written in cipher, which the steward hoped might reveal treason on her part. Outraged by the false implications of the plot, she considered the man's mere imprisonment by the secret police as insufficent punishment. On the pretext of distributing alms, she obtained entrance to his prison cell, where, with threats and curses, she beat him over the head with the cane which here severe gout necessitated her carrying. Growing angrier with each blow, she ordered her servants to burn his head and face with a candle, and finally sent for a bottle of vodka, had it poured over his head and set on fire." Luckily for the steward, the "horrified" jailors managed to get the dowager Empress to leave before she did any more damage!
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© James Edward Hughes 2013